During some recent travels I visited New York. Partly built on reclaimed land from the natural harbour, surrounded by water and full of life that never sleeps, it is a great city to visit. The areas of high-rise (where the foundations allow) are subject to constant renewal, contrasting against the more historic low-rise areas such as the West Village.
We had a fantastic time visiting there and saw some wonderful architecture, landscape and engineering. Central park is a wonderfully bold city planning ideal, to rival the great boulevards of Paris and Vatican City. It took courage and principles to plan and maintain this green lung within the centre of the city, especially as demand for space grew. Within it’s centre you can become unaware of the humming city around you and is a stark contrast to the rigid city blocks, even in its square format.
The rigid grid system is dissected by the diagonal Broadway, serving to ease the flow of traffic negotiating a series of one way grids, it gives way to some pretty interesting use of space, notably the wonderful flatiron building.
Respite from the blocky buildings can be found at Frank Lloyd Wright’s organic Guggenheim museum and the highline. We only scratched the surface of the city in three and a half action packed days so will definitely be heading back, especially as the city changes so quickly.
